Yom Kippur ... Atonement & Affliction!!

I wrote this Remembrance last Yom Kippur.  I Reprint today as it Retains it's Relevance .... This year I write from Eretz Yisrael itself,  having made Aliyah.  Baruch Ha'Shem!!!

It is a day of Atonement & Affliction.  One affliction Israel did not expect happened on Yom Kippur, 1973.   The Yom Kippur War began with a joint surprise attack by our Arab enemy on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism, when Egypt and Syria crossed ceasefire lines to enter Israel in the Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights. The war began with a massive and successful Egyptian attack across the heavily-fortified Suez Canal during the first three days, after which they dug in, settling into a stalemate. In the north, the Syrians attacked the Golan Heights at the same time and initially made threatening gains against the greatly outnumbered defenders, but their momentum waned.  

Within a week, Israel recovered and launched a four-day counter offensive, driving deep into Syria itself. And so, we turned the situation right around, the Egyptians went back on the offensive, but were decisively defeated ~ the IDF then counterattacked at the seam between two Egyptian armies, crossed the Suez Canal, and advanced southward and westward in over a week of heavy fighting. Israel encircled elements of Egypt's Third Army after an agreed United Nations ceasefire resolution, which we correctly ignored!

 

Victory for Israel meant between 2,520 and 2,800 killed in action. An additional 7,250 soldiers were wounded. Some 293 Israelis were captured. Approximately 400 Israeli tanks were destroyed. Another 600 were disabled. The Israeli Air Force lost 102 aircraft & two helicopters were also shot down. But Victory is Victory!!!!

 

Defeat in this war further humiliated the Arab world .... let's remember this,  & how our Arab enemy issued the "three no's", resolving that there would be "no peace, no recognition and no negotiation with Israel". They haven't changed their minds, just their strategy.   Why have we changed ours??  Let's remember our forthrightness under Ha'Shem & our astounding victory in battle this Yom Kippur & may it lead to a decisive change in our Strategy in our present 'peace' negotiations.  Appeasment Never Works!!!!

 

What lessons are still to be learned from a war Israel fought 38 years ago today?

 

The current wave of  Blatant Anti-Semitism & Anti-Israel demonization in Europe and elsewhere was prefigured then, in the months after the Yom Kippur War. The Arab oil boycott turned Israel into a pariah ~  fewer countries had diplomatic relations with the Jewish state than with the PLO, which didn’t even pretend to seek anything but Israel’s destruction. The UN General Assembly gave a standing ovation to Yasser Arafat, who wore a pistol to the session and preached the destruction of a UN member state, the Jewish State of Israel.  

 

Zionism is the Jews’ final strategy for acceptance, ending their status as a ghost people haunting the nations, as Zionist thinker Leo Pinsker put it. Yet not only had Zionism failed to win Jews acceptance, Zionism itself has become the pretext for the latest assault on Jewish legitimacy.  Why does every attempt to create a normal Jewish relationship with the world seem to fail?  Because we are seeking to please International opinion into accepting the Jewish State of Israel on Equal terms.  I don't think they will ever do this.  Ever, except over our dead bodies. Destruction of Judaism .... that is the world's Desire, this Yom Kippur, as last Yom Kippur, as Yom Kippur 1967!!

If anything, the crisis that began with the Yom Kippur War has only deepened.  The question of Israel’s permanence as a Jewish entity has become even more urgent in recent years.  In fact,  it is now an existential one.  No Western society lives in greater intimacy with death than Israel.   Reflecting on the Yom Kippur war of 1973 this day may be the next phase of Israeli response to Yom Kippur, 1973.

 

"in military terms Israel would recognize its achievement in the war as having few historic parallels. Reeling from a surprise attack on two fronts with the bulk of its army still unmobilized, and confronted by staggering new battlefield realities, Israel's situation was one that could readily bring strong nations to their knees. Yet, within days, it had regained its footing and in less than two weeks it was threatening both enemy capitals, an achievement having few historical parallels. Israel faced not just the Egyptian and Syrian armies but much of the Arab world, and did so with the arm it had most relied on, the air force, tied behind its back. As a military feat, the IDF’s performance in the Yom Kippur War dwarfed that in the Six Day War. Victory emerged from motivation that came from the deepest layers of the nation’s being and from basic military skills that compensated for the grave errors of leadership" ~ Abraham Rabinovich, 'The Yom Kippur War' p. 498.